Searching for documents or other digital objects that contain or include a phrase is known in the art. For example, phonetic queries designed to search, in a database or other storage, for documents that include a phrase are known. A phonetic query may include a set of phrases to be searched for and one or more rules. For example, a phonetic query may include a first phrase to be searched for and a second phrase to be excluded from the search such that the result (or response to the query) includes a list or other reference to documents that include the first phrase and do not include the second phrase. A phrase may be for example one or more words as a group (e.g., “carpenter”, “manual laborer”, “dye-free detergent”), and a phrase typically has a meaning if a group of words (e.g. “Olympic opening ceremonies”).
Phonetically similar phrases are a major challenge for the industry. For example, phonetically similar phrases are the primary cause of false alarms in known system and methods, e.g., search engines that use phonetic queries. For example, if a user wants to find documents with the phrase “computer” the user might get false alarms or results, e.g., since the phrase “commuter” may be wrongly identified as the searched for “computer” phrase.